Weekly Cultural Update: Televised Execution of Fort Hood Shooter; Screens and Youth Mental Health; A New Wave of Feminism; AI Wins Literary Prize

Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] The Pentagon says it will publicly execute the Fort Hood shooter. Is blaming social media for the rising mental illness phenomena missing the deeper issue? A new wave of feminism emerges that is rooted in the truth of male-female differences, and a massive literature prize is awarded to an author who may have used AI to generate the short story. These are the stories we'll discuss, and we also address some of your questions. I'm your host, Sean McDowell.

Scott Rae: I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.

Sean McDowell: This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Scott, now before we jump in, today and this week is special. Why?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, it was nine years ago this week that we posted our first episode of Think Biblically with a guy named McDowell-

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: ... As our guest. Your dad was our guest on our very first program. So it's been a, it's been a wonderful partnership. I've so enjoyed doing this. This is, I say, one of the things that is so life-giving for me. And, so just wanted to let our listeners know we've been at this for a while, and we're looking forward to another nine years.

Sean McDowell: And by the way, one year out, Lord willing, we can continue this. What kind of celebration or live airing should we do? We did this for five years, where maybe some folks could come in in person at Biola, maybe interview a special guest. If you have any ideas for something we could do for a 10-year kind of celebration, shoot us an email. We'd love to look at that and just start kind of planning ahead in plenty of time. Well, Scott, as always, on our weekly cultural update, there's fascinating stories, and the moment this one dropped, I thought, "I wonder what Scott is gonna think about this one," 'cause it's right in your lane. And by the time we literally air this, there could be an announcement, that they're not going through with it, but it's the ethical principle that matters that I did not see coming in terms of the Pentagon says the Fort Hood shooter execution will be live-streamed. Now, by firing squad, this is Nidal Malik Hasan, a former officer who admitted to killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood Army Base in Texas. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview with a conservative news outlet, that he said that he wanted to ensure, quote, "People are able to watch it because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these type of things." It's scheduled to be set December 3rd at Fort Hood. He said it'd be carried out at 1:00 p.m., which is around the same time Hasan opened fire at the base on November 5th, 2009. He called the decision to execute by firing squad a no-brainer. This is Hegseth. Hasan's execution would be actually the first by the U.S. Military in more than 65 years, and a service member hasn't been executed by firing squad since 1945. That's crazy. That's the time of, obviously, World War II. And Hegseth said it was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks, and so he's going to get a firing squad of soldiers as it should be. Now, obviously, Trump came out and made a statement. He's like, "I'm not sure that this is gonna happen or not." And Vance was like, "If it does, I'm not going to watch it." But what's your take on this? Is this the right direction for justice, or is this the wrong direction? [laughs]

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I think this is the wrong direction. But I found this really interesting that Hegseth, the argument that he made sounds a lot like, an argument from deterrence. So, and when he says, "So the people will know that these things have consequences." And I've actually made this argument before in my classes when we talk about the death penalty, a bit tongue in cheek actually, to point out that the argument from deterrence is not really the primary reason for the death penalty. And I did that, Sean, by suggesting that if we were really serious about deterrence, we would televise executions, assuming that no civilized person would ever countenance such a thing.

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: I thought it was a pretty effective counterargument against deterrence being the main argument for the death penalty until this week. Now, this is especially since public executions are somewhat rare. Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, none of which are governments that we would wanna emulate. And it seems to me they do this in part for reasons of deterrence. So here's you know, I I dug into this a bit, in the last few days since this announcement came out. I discovered that there are a lot of, lot of Christian people who are raising theological objections to this, but most of them are more principled objections to the death penalty more so than objections to live streaming it. Live streaming it sort of... I think they would, they would say this, it being public adds insult to injury morally speaking. So one pastor in Texas put it this way. He supports the death penalty and supports it being public. He put it like this, "Life is so valuable, God said that whoever takes a life should pay with his own life, and the more people that can see that truth illustrated through a public execution, the better." What I, what I didn't find as much were people who supported the death penalty in principle like you and I, like we talked about a week ago, but who are, who think that televising it is a bad idea. Now, I'm not, I'm not presuming to speak for you on this, and I'll let you weigh in in just a moment. But,

Scott Rae: those folks I think are more rare, who, you know, who see the death penalty as okay in principle but really don't like the idea of it being a public spectacle. So I've got a little bit more to say, but I'm curious to hear, to know if you agree with me on this take or if you see it differently.

Sean McDowell: I do agree with you on this take, and I'm glad that you differentiated between the death penalty itself being just and the live streaming of the death penalty. And barring some of the points you made about it not being carried out justly, in principle I support it for a range of reasons. Biblically, I support it, ethically and philosophically. I think deterrence is a piece of it. But live streaming, at first I actually thought this must be a Babylon Bee kind of headline. At first I was like-

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: ... "No, you've- you're kidding, right?" Now, if I'm gonna charitably look back at, say, the Wild West when they had public executions, they didn't have the state police system and control like we do today. So they probably relied upon fear more than we need to rely upon fear for the state today. So I I just don't see it. I guess my concerns, if I were gonna sum it up, is a few things. Number one, and Albert Mohler raised this on his briefing. He said, "Does this fuel radical Muslims to just use this-"

Scott Rae: Absolutely

Sean McDowell: ... As potential fodder for how bankrupt we are and America is against Muslims? It, it's only gonna give them fuel. I think back of when we really took out Bin Laden. They killed him, put him in a bag, dumped it in the ocean, and it was done. There was no trial. There was no room, and it just cleared away any of that, kind of use, and I fear that that could happen. I think second, just the idea of a spectacle. If I had... I might, and I'd emphasize might, be persuaded differently. If you could convince me that people would watch this with maturity and not turn it into a spectacle and realize what it is, then maybe, and I emphasize maybe. But I have not only zero confidence, I have negative confidence. I can just imagine all the social media videos and the TikTok and the responses of people airing this. I have no confidence that our culture can handle this with any degree of maturity. And it takes something, the taking of human life that is so, like, sacred, and turns it into a spectacle. And the last one, you know, some people might not like this question but, or this angle. Even somebody who takes 13 lives, who I think deserves to have his life taken from him, is still made in the image of God. And should his life be taken in a way that becomes a spectacle to others? I don't know that it should be. So for those reasons, I fit apparently in the smaller category that you described.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I agree that we ought not take a solemn event and turn it into a spectacle. And Sean, one of the articles I read on this ironically was called A History of Picnics.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: And one of the things that's in the history of picnics was how frequently public executions became, [laughs] occasions for family picnics prior to witnessing the execution.

Sean McDowell: Wow.

Scott Rae: Now I think the when public executions are staged in free countries, I think you can make an argument that they undermine our respect for life. It coar- it coarsens us. I think it can shape the character of those who view it. When they occur in totalitarian countries, they are used to terrorize people as part of a program of authoritarian rule. And I think the other thing that troubles me about this, Sean, is public executions I think can blur the distinction between justice and vengeance.

Scott Rae: And like you mentioned, I think it can undermine the dignity of the condemned person if the execution becomes a spectacle. And I wanna sort of raise the virtue question on this. You know, you know, J.D. Vance had a comment about it where he supports the idea but said he's not gonna watch it. And I said, you know what, the virtue question asks, you know, what kind of person would watch a public execution? And what does that, what does that do to our character to treat the, a sacred event like the taking of life as a spectacle, and as a form of entertainment? That's the thing that troubles me about this. You know, Paul tells us in Philippians 4, he counsels us to think on things that are lovely and noble and righteous and honoring to God. And I I... The, this thing I think fails that test.

Sean McDowell: I think that's well said. I... You know, one Christian who defended this is Patrick Bet-David. He's a businessman, has a popular podcast. He's a Christian, really thoughtful, and he was... And the point that he made that was interesting was that the military, this guy served in the military and swore an oath to the military to defend the nation and directly betrayed that in a way that a normal murder doesn't, and that's why he wanted to make an example. That might persuade me to say, "Okay, maybe the execution is in front of certain military personnel so they see it." Maybe, but it doesn't even go beyond that to the public to me in this case. I think the downsides culturally, like you said, morally far outweigh the upsides of reverting back to this in my take. Anything else on this one, Scott?

Scott Rae: No. No, I hope, I I'm hoping and praying that they actually cancel it.

Sean McDowell: I hope so too.

Scott Rae: Not the execution, but the televising of it.

Sean McDowell: Oh, gotcha. Good. I'll end with a little quote by Walter Kim, who's the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He was on campus a couple weeks ago. And he said while he affirms the need for justice regarding the crime, quote, "At the same time, a live stream execution by firing squad risks turning one of the state's most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every human being." And I think he's right in the way he said that.

Scott Rae: Well put.

Sean McDowell: All right. It, to radically shift, this story caught my attention. It's an opinion piece in The New York Times, and there's been all this discussion about social media and cell phone use affecting the mental health of all of us, including young people. And there's been some massive rulings like we've discussed here towards, like, Facebook and YouTube paying out culpability for using their algorithms to hook kids even when they had awareness of its negative effects. Well, this New York Times piece, which interestingly came out after those cases, says, it talks about how children and teens today spend far more time in front of screens at home and at school than previous generations, and anxiety and depression have been climbing for years. Okay, we know that. But as a doctor who treats children with the mental health problems, I see screen time as a tantalizing distraction from bigger problems. America doesn't offer enough mental health care for children or sufficient health insurance to pay for it. So this doctor, psychiatrist says, "I see children who use phones, iPads, other devices compulsively, but the compulsive use is usually a sign of something deeper, depression, anxiety, attention deficit, hyperactive disorder, which can both feed the screen use and in turn be fed by it." So the case for screen time, this doctor argues, screen time limits rests in part on an unproven assumption that fewer hours will mean fewer anxious and depressed kids. The best evidence doesn't support it. Limiting screen time can promote children's overall health, but doesn't get to the heart of the issue. This, doctor argues that genetics and certain experiences in childhood, as well as the lack of proper diagnosis and treatment appear to be far more influential. Does this ring true to you? Do you agree with this, or do you disagree with this take?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I can see a lot of merit in the argument that screens and social media, like other addictive behaviors, are a anesthesia to deaden the pain of loneliness or other mental health conditions. And I'd say normally with these types of addictions, like to drugs and alcohol and to pornography, to sex, other things like that, they're not the root cause, but a way to deal with deeper mental health issues. And I think the the one point I think the author makes that is surely right is that the resources that we have devoted to deal with mental health issues in adolescents are not adequate. But I find it hard, Sean, to dismiss the findings of Jonathan Haidt in his book, The Anxious Generation, that, put the explosion of youth mental health issues beginning around 2007, the year [chuckles] that the smartphone was introduced. And he makes the point that that's not just correlation, it's causation. And I, in my view, there's no doubt that screens and social media exacerbate mental health issues, to say the least. And I think in my view, that's reason enough to urge schools and families to limit screen time, whether they're the cause or or not, or just make it worse may be another matter. I'm willing, I think I'm willing to be a bit agnostic about that, but that doesn't change how I feel about the overuse of screens, nor does it change what I think should be done about it. So I think this is, you know, this is a distinction that's being made that I, in my view, I, it's not clear to me how much difference that distinction ought to make in how we treat screens and social media with adolescents.

Sean McDowell: So I agree and concur with your take as well as this article, which is basically asking the question, what's the root and the heart of the problem? Why are we seeing mental illness and anxiety increase so much? And the solution here seems to be we don't have enough resources towards mental health care for this generation. Now, I agree that that plays a role, and maybe it's under-resourced for a lot of kids, especially in vulnerable communities. But in some ways, this is still downstream from the question of what's causing the anxiety and what's causing the depression and causing the loneliness. And a lack of mental health care doesn't explain why that has increased. That's still the problem. And so you're right that Haidt points towards, the increased use of, again, social media and screen time as being correlated, if not causing that. Now, I think the article's right to ask the question, why is it that some people become addicted and others don't? Why is it that screen time affects some people differently than others, especially young people? And I think when we begin to answer that question, then we're getting to the heart and the root of it. And the article says, it says, "Genetics and certain experiences in childhood, as well as the lack of proper diagnosis and treatment appear to be far more influential than screen time." What I would posit, and I don't have the data to back this up, so if I'm wrong, I'll circle back and correct it. I would say probably the root of the issue would be the health of relationships in a young person's life, period. That would be the most definitive factor In terms of how social media affects them or doesn't affect them. Now, there might be some experiences that play a role, there might be some genetic differences, but I think the root of it are relationships. Biblically, we're made for relationships with God and for other people. We are relational beings, and when we lack them, there's something broken in our lives, and we will look for a substitute to replace those relationships. Probably 20 or 25 years ago, Scott, at the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, they had a conference in Vegas I went to. I don't even think they have conferences anymore. And there was a psychiatrist, a Christian psychiatrist, I believe from Texas at the time, Paul Warren, said something that's always stuck with me. He said, "An addiction is something used to fill the void a relationship is meant to fill." An addiction is something used to fill a void that a relationship is meant to fill. In other words, why do some people are more prone to certain addictions? At its root, in many cases we're gonna find, if not most, a broken relationship that is there. So this is where I agree with the author saying let's get to the heart of it, and screen time alone doesn't explain this. When the author says the heart of it is a lack of funds and mental health care, I think, no, this is a government kind of solution that doesn't get to the heart of what makes us healthy as human beings. Now, what the government can do to foster that is a separate issue. I don't have a simple answer for that, but we can only find a solution when I think we properly identify the problem. Agree, disagree? Give me your take on that.

Scott Rae: Agree. It's a really good take on this, and I think, you know, theologically, we are created for in real life community, and the community created by social media is, in my view, a cheap substitute for the real thing. But here, I wanna let me tag onto your point and maybe frame it a little bit differently.

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Scott Rae: I think the question that the author's point here begs is: Where does the primary responsibility lie for ensuring the mental health of kids? Is it the state, the mental health profession, schools, or is it the family and the parents? And I wonder, does this speak to the breakdown of the family in this area? I, you know, Sean, I don't wanna be overly simplistic about this, but it seems to me that a lot of mental health issues could be alleviated or prevented by parents who are unconditionally loving their kids, they're present to them in the home, they show up when their kids are doing important things. You know, and I, and I know that there are a lot of parents who do all those things, and their kids still have mental health issues.

Sean McDowell: Of course.

Scott Rae: I realize that. Life is complicated. But the article makes reference to and you referred to this just briefly, the family environment that makes a big difference. Here, they put it like this: "Children who have had adverse childhood experience, such as neglect, abuse, poverty, homelessness, parental violence, or substance abuse," what they discovered is that children who who are exposed to four or more of these experiences have three times the odds of problematic screen use. Now, some of these, some of these, kids who have attention issues, and, you know, some of these, you know, we... I know lots of, I know lots of families, they're great parents, they're attentive, they do all the right things, and their kids have ADHD issues, that I think are no fault of anything that's going on in the family. But, kids with attention issues are also prone to more addictive screen use. But children who come from families with other types of addictive behaviors find themselves much more vulnerable to this. So in my view, the family environment makes a huge difference. And you know, I wonder if, you know, the fact that, you know, raising a family has gotten more expensive with both parents having to work full time, and lot, lots of kids in, you know, in other childcare care arrangements other than with the parents, you know, I just, I wonder if all of that is having an impact on this as well.

Sean McDowell: Totally a fair question. I don't know the answer to that, but I think as the family has broken down, the government has gotten bigger and bigger and stepped into a role that the family should, in principle, be providing. But I think at its core, I do appreciate the article points out four or five of those relational breakdown experiences make somebody far more susceptible to addictions, whatever they may be, and mental health issues. But it reminds me of the conversation we've had multiple time about kind of the gender, rapid gender onset dysphoria we've talked about, and underneath that is a key issue that people often are not being aware of, and if we don't address the deeper core issue, then just changing some of the surface stuff doesn't fit. And I think that's true when it comes to social media. So we need to limit use at school, helpful. We need to maybe have harder access to certain platforms, but that's not gonna fix the root problem itself that I think this article points out. All right, this next article you sent to me, Scott, I think is fascinating, and I had heard about this a little bit, but I think it's a positive sign, and this is a, an article called Feminism's Next Wave. Now, there's been like four waves of feminism, some would say five, depending on how you count them. If this is the next wave of feminism This would be a remarkable turnabout. And so what apparently happened just recently is the article starts by how women own more property, exercise their civic rights more frequently, like voting, hold more levers in our socioeconomic system than ever before. But in the midst of this, and their political gains, women appear to have suffered a corresponding loss in contentment and purpose. And then the article says something interesting. It says, "While women aren't getting happier, they are getting more liberal." And in many ways, so many of these women have a blame the system, carrying a grievance kind of mentality that we actually see in a lot of men on the right as well, interestingly enough. But then the article, this is where I stopped and was like, "This is good stuff." The article says, "Ultimately, this problem is not political, but anthropological. Amid the frenzied push to make women equal to men, we have forgotten what women are." I paused in the article right there, Scott [chuckles] and was like, "Amen. Thank you. I think somebody gets it here." And then what happened in this meeting is historic, in Rochester, in the historic Lyon Mansion, a home full of old books and hand-carved woodwork, over 100 women of all ages assembled to chart a new path forward for the fair sex in the 21st century. And just a couple quick things about it is that one of the roots is that they're kind of following the tradition of the wildly influential philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre, who said that, "True human freedom mas- manifests itself in mutual dependence of persons." So in other words, freedom being independent and autonomous, do whatever I want or feel. Real freedom is actually found with interdependence in community. Love that. They also talk about how this other waves of feminism denied human biology, again, what women are, and it leads not to real freedom. So this article says, "Women today are incentivized to take birth control, abort inconvenient pregnancies, freeze their eggs, or outsource the childbearing process altogether. All artificial interventions used to make women more like men, unburdened by the nature of their own female bodies. Surrogacy itself instrumentalizes a woman's body. Her womb becomes a space to lease her body." Now, the one that might give some of our audience that is presumably more Protestant is she ties in abortion and surrogacy with birth control, which is a conversation [chuckles] and a debate we don't necessarily have to have right now. But the idea being freedom is found in community, and freedom is found in recognizing what we are as beings and avoiding technology that denies who and what we are, and specifically applying this to women. So Mike, I have a couple questions. Do you agree with this movement? I presume you do. Do you think that it's going to take off and get any legs, or do you think it's a fad that's just gonna pass?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, it's been a long time since I've been so encouraged by a story that we've been covering for the Cultural Update.

Sean McDowell: Good.

Scott Rae: This was, I found, profoundly affirming and encouraging of so many of the things that we've been talking about. And some of the people who signed, you know, the document that came out of this conference was the Declaration of Interdependence, and some of the folks who signed that are actually some of the people that we've interviewed. You know-

Sean McDowell: That's right

Scott Rae: ... Abigail Favale, for example. And we've cited very favorably the works of Louise Perry and Mary Harrington, in their critiques of the previous waves of feminism. I am very curious to see what kind of reception this will get among more, what I would call more mainstream feminists. I suspect that this is a shot across the bow to them, that they're probably not gonna like, and they, my guess is that the reaction to this, they will, they will take this as a step backward for women. When in our view, this is as precisely the opposite. The, in my view, there is so much to like about [chuckles] what's in this piece and about what's in this movement. You mentioned several of these things. You know, here are a couple other things that the article mentions that I found very encouraging. When they say, "Women are living under the shadow of a false feminism that denies their biology and their dignity. Technology promises a world where women are no longer the only path through which new life can be brought into the world," which they say is a terrible thing for women. Techno- "Such technology may promise to liberate women from the suffering of childbearing, but such relief can only be acquired through the denial of a woman's biology and her unique right to motherhood. You know, radical autonomy has come to be regarded by many as life's highest good, as though our obligations to one another ought not order our lives." You know, that was a profound statement. It it refers to what they call the unbodying of women, which [chuckles] I thought was a great term, the body, a body-denying ideology. It said, the article points out, "Today, in grasping for equality with men, we've abandoned belief in the natural distinction, biological and otherwise, between the sexes. Holding, we hold to the sacred particularity of man and woman." they say, I mean, the theological makes its entrance here. They say, "We are transcendent beings ultimately made for union with God." now they probably will get dissed a bit by the mainstream feminists for that religious stuff. But Sean, the really encouraging thing here to me is it puts autonomy in its place-

Sean McDowell: That's right

Scott Rae: ... And gives a proper, our obligations to one another, not our individual autonomy, is what orders our lives. And, you know, to see evidence of this, Sean, you know, we've talked about this repeatedly. All of the, all of the, quote, "one another" obligations in the New Testament, those are everywhere In the epistles that talk about our obligations to one another in our communities, in the body of, in the body of Christ, in our families. You know, in Ecclesiastes, Solomon tried radical autonomy, and he concludes that that search for self-fulfillment that centers on the self is ultimately self-defeating. You know, and Jesus had, [laughs] had something to say about this too, that, you know, he who seeks to save his own life will lose it. You know, what does it profit someone to gain the world and lose their soul?

Scott Rae: You know, and it says, it says what we've been saying for... I'm just so encouraged by this. You know, we're sexed beings. Men and women are not interchangeable. There are things unique to both sexes that are God-ordained. You know, Abigail Favale points this out in her book, which we loved, The Genesis of Gender, you know, that what's unique about women is their ability to generate life in their own bodies as opposed to, you know, that not being the case for men. I mean, there's just there's so much good stuff here. And the article points... The article will link our listeners to this declaration of interdependence. And the article encourages people to read the whole thing, which I've not done yet, but I'm planning on it. And so I would encourage our listeners to, you know, click on that link that will get you to the entire document, and read, and read the whole thing for yourself.

Sean McDowell: I agree with you. When I read this article, I was like, "Yes, great find, Scott. This is so encouraging." some of the writers here, specifically Louise Perry and Abigail Favale, have written brilliant books making a case for what would be a biblical sexual ethic through natural law without using chapter and verse, which invol- like The Genesis of Gender by Abigail Favale is my go-to book-

Scott Rae: The best thing out there

Sean McDowell: ... On what it means to be male and female, in terms of just looking at our bodies and what they mean. Now, she's Catholic, so she brings in a theology of the body. But I think, as a whole, I think Protestants and any Christians could celebrate and agree with the case that she makes. Louise Perry, again, wrote a book, again, I think before she was a Christian, called The Case Against the Sexual Revolution, and it's one of the best critiques against it. And she argues in that book, she says not only just from an ethical perspective, but the monogamy molecule works in society. It creates better mental health. It helps economically. It just causes a society to flourish, which you and I would say that's because the monogamy molecule lines up with the way God has designed us to be. And really, what we're seeing come to fruition is this debate over what it means to be free. And I think this line here, in the article says, "Indeed, the only way to escape the battle of the sexes is to reground male and female in a shared humanity, an anthropology rooted in mankind's unique dignity within the visible world while recognizing and holding sacred the particularity of man and woman as made by God," she writes in the article. The question is, if there is a God, what is freedom? If there's a God, freedom is living according to this God's design and being who God designed us to be. If there's not a God, and we came through some naturalistic evolutionary process, then we get to define and explain what freedom is for ourselves. That's at the root of this, what really truly is freedom. So I love that that comes, to the surface. I'd also say, the last comment on this, I appreciate how holistic this is. So she makes a case towards the end that these body, a body-denying ideology, which is basically saying that a woman's body is not essential to who and what she is, has threatened the sanctity and safety of female-only spaces. So in other words, there's questions of birth control, there's questions of IVF, there's questions of female spaces. There's all these questions tied together, and I'm not sure we've developed a consistent sexual ethic rooted in the body itself. And this is important because one of the most important books in five years I'd encourage our audience to read if they haven't is by Carl Truman in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. At the very end, he says one of the things the church needs to recover for the sake of the culture is a robust theology of embodiment, and that's exactly what I think this article captures.

Scott Rae: John, one final thing on this before we leave it.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Scott Rae: I think, you know, the article starts out with a, with a diagnosis that Mary Harrington points out as well in her book Feminism Against Progress, where she, where she points out that women have never been more prosperous. They're earning higher than ever wages and salaries. They're filling leadership roles. They outpace men in educational attainment, accomplishments. They own property, exercise, you know, civic rights more frequently, hold levers in our system more so than ever before. But in the midst of all these gains, women seem, appear to have suffered a corresponding loss of contentment and purpose. Say women take antidepressants at an unprecedented rate. Fewer women find meaning ful- and fulfillment in their relationships, which include marriage and motherhood. You know, they're less likely to be sa-satisfied with life, things like that. So the, diagnosis here is what is, sort of what is driving this- And as opposed to sort of doubling down on the things that are producing these kinds of what I would call anti-flourishing things, the, article and the conference and the Declaration of Interdependence are suggesting maybe we need a different direction. Maybe we need to go back to some of what I think the found- our Founding Fathers had in mind when they talked about, autonomy and freedom being not the freedom to do whatever you want, but the freedom to do what you ought, the freedom to follow your moral obligations, and the freedom to live into the kind of person that you've created, you've been created to be. So I find, I mean, I find the whole thing just incredibly encouraging. We will keep our listeners posted as to how this is received. Some of the... I read some of the comment. There have been, you know, several hundred comments on the article-

Sean McDowell: That's right

Scott Rae: ... Already. And the the comments were somewhat mixed. Not, I would say not, outright rejecting the point, but sort of offering some counterpunches along the way.

Sean McDowell: My hope for a movement like this is not that there's a genuine fifth wave complete return back to biblical ideas. Now, of course, that's my ultimate hope. That would be amazing if we had that kind of revival. But more realistically, and still would be a stretch, is if they partner together, is if they think of creative ways to just offer a solid biblical life-giving alternative that women and all people in our culture are aware of so they have a voice opposed to the common mantra and ethic that we see all the time, like a prophetic, consistent voice in our culture that offers people the real freedom and ultimately leads them to the Gospel. So this is the kind of movement I think we should pray for and we should talk about and encourage and support as we can. The women behind this are pretty amazing and I'm rooting for them in a lot of ways. All right. So this last story, again, you sent this one to me and I ... It's like every week there's an AI story. I'm like, "Okay, here we go. Didn't see this one coming. Should have." But this is in The Atlantic, and there's yet another literary prize winner seems to be AI. So the article doesn't land and say it is AI, but apparently there's a recent story called The Blue Fighter that will find its way to, a lot of people have read it because it was named the winner of the prestigious Caine Award for African Writing, which is awarded the equivalent of $13,000 for a short story by an African writer. Now, this article, art or this, author in The Atlantic says, "Taste is subjective, but trust me, this story is bad. It's really bad." Now, I haven't read it, so I'm relying upon this author's take. Says, "The narrator has all the personality of a chatbot," that's not coincidental, "and there's an AI detector, Pangram, that flags almost the entire story as AI-generated. And this comes after similar scanner-- scandals over this year's Commonwealth Prize and Prix Goncourt, two other renowned literature contests in which Pangram flagged AI use among finalists." Now, they [chuckles] the author says any of these incidents might have been written off as a fluke, but they point to something of a crisis of trust in writers and technology that, quote, "Threatens to undermine a global system of literary recognition." Now, that feels a little overstated to me since I'm not in that world, but nonetheless it's concerning. And the author says AI detection is fallible, it's not perfect, but it's also highly accurate, when it's used for classification of text. So this author ran all 25 of the previous Caine Prize-winning stories through Pangram and labeled them as 100% human written. 100%. Now, there's certain things this person can identify. I'm not sure we need to go into too much detail, but things like just, certain kinds of language that's used, certain, what they said are stereotypes about African life that anybody who's on the inside would pick up. So it seems now we have yet another industry rocked by AI, upending trust, and people don't know where to turn. What's your take?

Scott Rae: Sean, I am not at all surprised by this. And in my view, it was only a matter of time before we saw this happen. The temptation is irresistible. And I found what's really striking about this is how the what was, what took place in the attempt to contest the accusation of AI use. Notice the people did not attempt to justify use of AI. They all contested that they actually used it. And here, I think what strikes me about this is that it seems to me that all of those involved know intuitively that using it for writing stories in their entirety and passing it off as your own is not right and constitutes deception and plagiarism. But you know, nobody was attempting to say, "This is a valid, justifiable use of AI."

Scott Rae: they were simply contesting the accusation in itself.

Scott Rae: Now, I, you know, I I would agree with the article. You know, the article, it concludes like this: It is a matter of literary integrity. I think, you know, and I think in other fields I'd say it's a matter of academic integrity.

Scott Rae: Several of the most prestigious literary prizes have been infected by language that represents not people's actual values and cultures, but a damaging mimicry of them by products of the most powerful companies in the world. The artic- And this is the line that it concluded. "This is the time to do something about it." I kept waiting for the author to say, "And here's what I'm suggesting that we do about it." But there's, the, it was completely devoid of any practical suggestions to how to combat... You know, this is, this is not, this is not using AI to prime the pump to get ideas. It's not using AI to check your grammar. It's not, it's not using AI to, you know, to help edit your work and make it sound a little bit better. This is using AI from start to finish.

Scott Rae: And I would love, I would love to, I would love for the article to have suggested something that they would recommend to do about this. You know, to strip the person of the prize, if it's, if it's proven that AI was used to author the piece in its entirety.

Scott Rae: You know, disqualify, I mean, disqualify submissions where there's this overwhelming suspicion of AI. You say, you know, something, that we can, that we can suggest to, you know, these

Scott Rae: prize awarding committees that they can actually do about this, you know? Now, we've done this in education. We have a lot of, I mean, we have things that we do with our students when we suspect AI use. We, you know, same thing that we do when we suspect plagiarism. We call them in. We ask them to tell us about their paper and see, you know, see how much they remember of what they actually wrote, and if they can't, if they don't, recall very much, the chances are really high that they have either plagiarized or used AI to replace them as the author and not just, you know, and not just to help edit their work.

Sean McDowell: I've got an idea. Why don't we bring back public executions for people that use- [laughs]

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: I'm glad you laughed and saw my humor on this one. Maybe in five years it'll be so bad somebody will bring it back, and I won't be able to make that argument. Kidding aside, it isn't, you know, it is a question about, like, public shaming. You know, how much do you just make an example about somebody without totally ruining their lives and bring back a culture of shame? I mean, does that help minimize? I don't, I'm not even saying I'm for that, but it seems like something like this, there ought to be some sense of shame. Like, wow, this is not how humans should act, and we shouldn't do this kind of corporate accountability. I think, you know, biblically speaking, the obvious principle is just the Ninth Commandment, thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not bear false witness. And to submit a short story as if it's your own and it's not is clearly an instance of deception, because the audience's expectation is that this was written by the individual, not an AI system that they could generate themselves. I only have two responses to your question. Number one, I do think we need to have real clarity in the classroom. I have clarity for my students, and maybe I should even get more, how they can use AI, how they can't, and things like the Evangelical Theological Society with papers, how can you use AI? How can you not use AI? Pastors, is there clarity? The first thing we need is just reasonable, clear guidelines that we know and largely agree on. And then second, there's no tool that's gonna catch everything. So this tool right now, this Pangram tool, whatever it is, can detect certain things, but it's only a matter of time where AI learns, and I put that in bracket, to avoid the test that this AI detection system has and is no longer detectable. Now, I do wonder, at what point will human beings not be able to tell the authentic from the fake? Because there's-

Scott Rae: Good question

Sean McDowell: ... This certain implicit kind of knowledge that we have, and maybe this is a bad example. I remember I was watching a Christian movie years ago, and this basketball player played for a D1 school, and the director of the film was like, "Isn't that awesome? He has a great jump shot." And I, as nicely as I could, I said, "Yeah, he looks like a good player, but he's not a high-level D1 player." I can just see the way he shoots and plays implicitly because I play basketball in a way that a machine couldn't tell. Well, when does our implicit knowledge run out of these experts because AI is so high? It feels like at some point that's probably going to happen, which, our safeguards can only go so far. When it's all said and done, the only way we have of resisting this is virtue and character, something internal that's going to resist these temptations. And I wish I could say, Scott, every time in my life I've resisted it 'cause I've always had character. Reading this article, I thought back to a time, even in sixth grade, I was like, you know what? Man, on this, I think it was a vocab or spelling test, I cheated 'cause I wanted an A, and I gave in. I still remember in sixth grade with this teacher that I loved, and it's still like, as I haven't thought about it for years, but thinking about it now, it almost bothers me. Like, gosh, I wish I hadn't done that. Like, all of us have fallen short. Now the temptations are even greater than they ever were, so we need more character than we've ever had. I don't think there's any way around it besides that. What do you think?

Scott Rae: Yeah. I completely agree. I even, I've told my students- You know, if, you know, if you, if you, if you're in this course just to check a box and to fulfill a requirement and don't really care about learning anything, don't really care about the kind of person you're becoming, I think, you know, I'm not gonna lose a lot of sleep if you use AI. But if you really care about learning something, if you want something that you're gonna take with you, for our grad students into the pastorate or into their, you know, their pastoral ministry,

Scott Rae: you know, then use it, use it within responsible limits, and we've clarified exactly what's appropriate to use and what's not. But I do think that, you know, it's, the, it, we do have, the virtue person asked the question, you know, what kind of person would use AI from start to finish and turn it in as their own work? You know, it's not that different, Sean. I had a student years ago who,

Scott Rae: for a, for a paper on, in my ethics course, this was in an, in an ethics course of all things, took a chapter from Moral Choices, reproduced it almost in its entirety word for word, and put his own name at the top of it.

Sean McDowell: Wow.

Scott Rae: And I caught, I, you know, thankful, I, you know, and understandably, I caught it within the first paragraph.

Sean McDowell: [laughs] Oh my goodness.

Scott Rae: As I, as I would hope I would. And I think the there is, there is, I think, a you know, a point you're making about shaming and sort of public shaming for this. That can, I think, can go too far.

Sean McDowell: Yeah.

Scott Rae: As the case, this Cambridge professor Jason Arday, who was, you know, widespread accusations of plagiarism. And he was so shamed by it that he ended up taking his own life. And so I think I I've got questions about you know, the propriety of some of that. But I think to let, you know, we have to be clear that, you know, do, using AI in the same way that you would copy somebody's work and put your name on it as your own is just as much egregious plagiarism as the old-fashioned definition of it.

Sean McDowell: Well said. Yeah, I I agree with that, and it's ultimately character and virtue. I think we're gonna keep circling back that here as a theme on Think Biblically 'cause of course it's a biblical idea. All right, we've got some questions, and before we go to our two questions, just wanna remind our audience that we would love to have you come study with us at Talbot School of Theology. Scott, I wish I knew over the past nine years how many students have decided to come study at Talbot because of hearing the podcast. I really have no idea. I've gotten emails, had people tell me anecdotally. It'd actually mean a ton to us if you, in fact, since it's nine years and you're listening, if there's a way that this podcast has helped you, would you just shoot us a quick email and let us know whether you came to Talbot, whether you shared it with somebody? We would love to just hear some stories. It would help us kinda gather its impact and think about the next 10 years and beyond. We'd definitely love to have you come study with us at Talbot, either our campus at Phoenix or our campus here in Southern California or by distance. All right, we had three questions, but one was about the public execution. We gave our two cents on that one. So here's one that says, "It seems that much weight is placed on the woman's responsibility in pregnancy and little mention of the male's role. In brief, it'd be refreshing to hear why the men responsible for impregnating women are not also held legally accountable for abortions. Do you believe these men should be held legally accountable?"

Scott Rae: No, because it's not their decision to end the pregnancy. They and I would say they are accountable if the woman keeps the baby for child support for the next 18 years, whether the man wants to keep, whether the man wants the child or not. And this is where, Sean, I think there's an inequity between the sexes that we don't often acknowledge. That is, the decision to avoid responsibility for the pregnancy is entirely the woman's, even if the man... And even if the man does not want the child, if the woman keeps the child, he's still on the hook for child support. But the woman, simply by her choice, can end her responsibility to and for that child. And I think the right answer is that neither of them should be able to do this simply by their choice at the expense of the child, and only on the assumption that the child is not a person does this rationale even begin to make sense.

Sean McDowell: That's exactly the heart of it. What is the unborn is the heart of the question. The difficulty of just giving an across-the-board response about how men should be held legally accountable is I know many cases of men who desperately try to talk their girlfriends or wives out of having an abortion, and then some men who manipulate and physically take and threaten-

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: ... To have an abortion. Those are very different cases. I don't know legally how to settle it, but if it gets beyond just encouraging and gets to the point of threatening and physically taking somebody to a clinic, then it seems to me there should be some legal accountability for it in those kind of cases. All right, last one is, like, a theological question. In some ways came out of nowhere, but it's a fair question. If somebody's reading the Old Testament, they're going to have questions that pop up. And I might emphasize, I haven't covered this passage yet, but one of the things on YouTube that I've been doing, Scott, is interviewing Talbot faculty on the toughest passages in the Bible, and they're, like, eight to 12-minute interviews. So I just had, Charlie Trimm on recently talking about who are the sons of God in Genesis chapter 6. What about slavery with Carmen Imes in Exodus chapter 21? So there's a lot of short takes there with Talbot professors that might be helpful. But this question says, "I have a question about 2 Kings chapter 2 verses 23 through 24, where Elisha apparently overreacted to taunt by a bunch of boys who called him baldy. Elisha calls down a curse on the boys- Two bears come out and attack the boys. Was Elisha really that sensitive about his hair, or is there something else going on here? Could there be a connection with cutting hair as a sign of taking or ending a vow? Really the question is, you know, could the boys in 2 Kings have been mocking Elisha about the audacity of cutting his hair as a sign of joining the prophets? Like, is this complete overkill for calling somebody baldy? And I'd say a few things. First off, it's a short passage. We don't have a lot of context for it, so we have to do our best in the Bible as a whole, in 2 Kings, and the role of a prophet to make sense of this. A couple other things to keep in mind is, number one, Elisha had just taken the prophetic mantle from Elijah. So Elijah, one of the key prophets of the Old Testament. We see Elisha take over, and then very shortly afterwards, somebody is mocking, his status. So a lot is at stake. To ridicule Elisha would've been understood, in that culture, since he spoke for God as a prophet, to ridicule God himself. This is a ridicule of God's character. The other piece was, is we're at the point in the story where the people had been given warning after warning after warning, given the Mosaic Covenant, about how important it was in obedience, given the nation of Israel. So you see these warnings increase in how severe they are to finally wake the people up. In some ways, this didn't wake the people up because shortly thereafter they get exiled for further disobedience. Last thing I'll say is, I don't know why, but the ESV translate this as small boys, but the Hebrew phrase refers to those at least 12 to 30 years old. So a translation of small boys or boys is likely incorrect. Anything you wanna add to this?

Scott Rae: Yeah, just one thing. I think you're right that the big idea is that contempt for the prophet here was tantamount to contempt for God himself. Because as the prophet is seen as God's special, specific messenger, and the the taunt that they're making is, the NIV translates this, "Get out of here, baldy. Get out of here." Literally, the term in Hebrew is, the taunt is to go up, baldy, go up. And it's a taunt referring to Elijah, which had taken place earlier in the chapter. Elijah's ascent into heaven, you know, directly, you know, at the end of his, at the end of his life. And so I think it's definitely a an expression of contempt and derision for the messenger of God, which is also, I think, equivalent to contempt and derision for God himself.

Sean McDowell: Look at you, man, pulling out some context and Hebrew language to explain this passage.

Scott Rae: How about that?

Sean McDowell: You're on fire today, my friend.

Scott Rae: I think-

Sean McDowell: Good stuff

Scott Rae: ... I think you, I'd be, I'd be interested to see, hear you know, interview one of our Old Testament profs on that passage too.

Sean McDowell: You know what? We've been working through Genesis and Exodus, [laughs] have not got to 2 Kings yet, but I will put that on my list to hear what Charlie Trim or Carmen Imes or Daniel Kim and so on, the rest of our amazing crew would take on that passage.

Scott Rae: Yeah,

Sean McDowell: I would be off-

Scott Rae: ... We may have to rescind everything we just said.

Sean McDowell: [laughs] We might have to, but fair enough. Hopefully that helps, for now. All right, Scott, as always, this is fun. This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, where both Scott and I teach full time. We have master's programs in theology, apologetics, marriage and family, Bible, Old Testament, in person at our our Phoenix, Talbot Phoenix Seminary, as well as our Talbot Seminary in Southern California, and online. Please keep your comments and questions coming. You can email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. And again, if you have any thoughts or ways that this podcast has helped you over the past nine years, we would love to hear. That would be encouraging and helpful for us on a lot of levels. Please give us a rating on your podcast app. If you've been listening nine years and have not given us a rating yet, now is the time.

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: It's due. We appreciate you listening, and we'll see you Tuesday. We had a really cool conversation with an archeologist named Paul Weaver about his top archeological discoveries that support the Bible. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]